It only takes a few seconds, or maybe less. Perhaps it’s just a blink, a flash of the sun through a pinhole in air-dried cotton sheets, or a shooting star racing towards the center of a black hole, erupting at the bend in our universe, where all events lose focus, lose time, lose everything except for the overwhelming lack of your presence… and suddenly an empty universe feels crowded, compared to waking up in a bed without you…

Could anybody please explain to me where it was I fucked up? I’ve burned through every memory, but it wasn’t enough to smoke out the inciting incident. I went from a warm soul to a body consumed by wildfire, and I can’t be sure why I set myself on fire to begin with. Everything was perfect, right?

We had each other.

We had love.

What else could I give you?

Why wasn’t I good enough?

You’re gone, but every time the truth comes to the front of my mind, I shove it down, down, all the way down, right through the ground beneath me. When I started, the truth barely reached the back of my throat. 6 years later, and there isn’t an ounce of me that doesn’t hide the truth. Every footstep creates an echo of an echo, so it’s impossible to tell where I started from, and I’ll never reach the end…

You never loosened your grip. Even though I stopped trying and resigned myself to this bottomless pit that was my life, you didn’t falter. I don’t know how many times I fell down, but each time felt like I was falling further than the last. At some point I stopped looking up, because there was no point; I was in a hole so deep that the Sun couldn’t find me.

But you pulled me out.

I tried to push you away. I tried to pull myself away. I jumped off of bridges and buildings, airplanes and orbiting satellite arrays. I emptied my lungs and sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. I stripped away all of my clothing to feel the ice of Mount Everest on my bare chest. Time and again I broke my body in a sad attempt at symmetry; matching every mental breakdown with equal physical pain. I didn’t care about consequences, I just wanted to suffer.

But it wasn’t enough.

Cuts healed. Broken bones could be mended. The physical pain never lasted… but my head… all of the thoughts in my head… they never stopped. I just want some fucking peace…